Transportation and Telecommunication

Coastal transportation and communication infrastructure such as roads, rails, bridge supports, utility poles and even buried cables and pipelines may be lost or destabilized by erosion of supporting land masses spurred by increased storm activity and coastal flooding. Areas dependent upon specialized ice transportation modes may lose all or important areas of ice cover as the land thaws, thins, and ice pockets collapse. Some ocean passages in ice impacted areas may be totally or partially free of ice to ease and expedite coastal and circumpolar transit and reduce the costs of maintaining navigable waters. Potential changes in ocean currents may pose problems for transoceanic cables that support communication lines between continents as areas of sediment deposition and removal change and result in cables being exposed to other ocean bottom activities such as fishing and sand and mineral extraction. Similarly, shifting sediment flows may result in changes in the extent and frequencies of many coastal dredging operations. Some areas may experience increased sediment deposition and resulting increased need to clear channels for safe navigation and others may need less frequent dredging.

 

Managers of and coastal infrastructure can prepare for coastal problems by elevating and moving structures inland from the coast. Working with coastal communities, choices will have to be made between armoring portions of the coast and trying to keep the ocean at bay or accepting a modified approach that tries to adapt to shifting and disappearing coastal land masses with more innovative solutions. Maintenance of transportation and communication lines is critical to safety and economic stability in the coastal zone. The infrastructure will have to be protected behind dikes, seasonally replaced, moved inland, or elevated to accommodate shifting coastal patterns. In coastal waters, subsurface users of the ocean bottom routinely maintain bottom survey patterns that may need to increase in frequency to detect exposure problems as pipelines or cables are exposed by changing overburdens. Working with national coast guards, ocean and coastal shippers and fishermen will have to be vigilant of modifications of shipping lanes and creation of "no drag areas," as the bottom sediments shift to accommodate changes in sedimentation rates in coastal areas and channels. More frequent updates on nautical charts and greater diligence in maintaining navigable channels will be a critical environmental and navigational priority.